5
AERYN
The road away from House Drazharel descends through broken terraces of black stone before surrendering to older land, and with every mile the world grows less obedient, less shaped by hands that carve walls and forge laws, more willing to exist according to impulses no council can command, which I find easier to trust than castles and the men inside them. Stone at least announces its hardness honestly, while power dresses appetite in polished language and expects gratitude for the disguise.
By the time the last watchtower disappears behind the ridgeline, the air has changed completely, carrying damp earth, crushed fern, sap warming beneath pale daylight, and the faint sweetness of flowers hidden somewhere beyond the road where no one has yet trampled them into usefulness.
Vaedros walks beside the nearer pack beast with the same controlled elegance he brought into the council chamber, as though wilderness ought to adapt itself to his standards rather than the reverse, boots striking the path in measured rhythm, cloak untroubled by bramble or mud because he chooses routes with the precision of a man offended by inconvenience. I watchhim in fragments when he is not looking and in full when he knows I am. The second method is riskier, though more rewarding.
He notices everything. That alone makes him difficult.
The forest has not begun in truth, not yet, but its influence reaches ahead of itself in subtle ways. Trees gather more densely. Moss climbs stones in patterns that resemble script if studied too long. Birdsong rises and cuts off abruptly, resumed elsewhere without visible movement between. The path narrows, bends, widens again for no reason a map would respect. I feel pressure building behind my eyes long before the first vision comes, the familiar warning that reality is loosening at the seams.
Vaedros glances toward me without slowing. “You’ve gone quiet.”
“You say that as though silence is suspicious.”
“With you, everything is suspicious.”
“How flattering. I assumed I was merely inconvenient.”
“You are many things. I prefer accurate categories.”
“And have you found one for me yet?”
He considers, which means he already has and is deciding whether sharing it creates advantage. “Not one that remains stable.”
I should dislike how pleased I am by that answer.
Instead I look ahead and pretend the curve of the path requires my full attention.
The warning reaches me before the vision fully forms, arriving first as pain behind my eyes and a sharp chill spreading down my back, the familiar signal that the world is about to split open whether I permit it or not. Light gathers at the end of my sight. I know what comes next. If he looks at me now, he will see it.
I stop walking abruptly and turn away from him.
“What now?” Vaedros asks.
“I need a moment.”
His silence tells me he does not believe the simplicity of that answer, but I do not wait for permission. I step off the trail and into the cover of fern and low branches, putting trunks and shadow between us before the vision takes hold completely.
By the time I brace one hand against a tree, my eyes are already burning.
Light spills across my vision from the inside out, gold and white beneath closed lids, bright enough that I know they must be glowing if anyone sees me now. I keep my face turned toward bark rough with moss and let the future tear through me in fragments.
Wet bark beneath a hand not yet placed there. The scent of opened soil. A violent drop in my stomach. Vaedros shifting half a step too far left. The ground collapsing beneath leaf mold and roots concealing a sink hollow deep enough to break bone, perhaps worse if the edge shears wider toward the ravine hidden below.
I see it clearly.
Pain follows immediately, brutal and familiar. It drives behind my eyes like metal forced through bone. Warm blood slips from my nose and spatters dark against the roots below me.
I press my sleeve to my face, breathing through nausea until the brightness fades.
When I return to the trail, he is watching me with narrowed eyes.
“You look pale.”
“How observant.”